Maruti Suzuki Victoris Long Term Report: Month 4 - Oil for Thought

Our cover story this month has made one thing quite clear - the hybrid is the new mileage king. That said, I’m not going to spend time singing praises of the Victoris’ stellar fuel efficiency. Instead, I want to talk about something related - something that briefly dips into the realm of geopolitics, particularly the ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran.

Now, I’ll admit I don’t fully understand how this conflict will play out. But given the epicentre of the dispute, one thing seems almost certain - fuel prices could skyrocket in the coming days, and every internal combustion engine car owner is bracing themselves for it. However, if you drive a hybrid, you’ll probably be impacted the least. Let me explain.

To give you some perspective, I filled the Victoris to the brim nearly two weeks ago, and the fuel gauge is still hovering around the halfway mark - despite covering nearly 400km, most of it within the city. As you’ll read in the cover feature, the Victoris hybrid returned an impressive 23.4km/l in chock-a-bloc city traffic. In comparison, the diesel Creta managed 14.2km/l, while an equivalent turbo-petrol would likely return around 11–12km/l under the same driving conditions. So, in simple terms, driving a hybrid reduces your fuel consumption by half, meaning fewer visits to the pump for the same driving distance. Not to mention, you also save quite a lot of money in the process.

This raises an interesting question - why haven’t our policymakers thought of this till now? Why isn’t there a stronger push for hybrids to reduce our reliance on oil? And more importantly, why aren’t more carmakers bringing hybrid technology to market? Has the rush to go fully electric landed us in a bit of a soup? It certainly feels that way - and I, for one, can’t quite wrap my head around it, especially considering the current situation with oil.